We have a neighbor who keeps his eye on the International Space Station.

Whenever it’s going to be visable from our neck of the woods, he gathers us all in the street and we watch as it hurtles through space at 17,000 miles an hour.

I would’ve really loved to be an astronaut.
Y’know, if I wasn’t what I am.

I suspect I’d have needed to possess more scientific leanings rather than poetic, though, if I were to train without gravity and fly a space shuttle and do space walks to repair electronic heat shields, etc. etc.

But there is a beautiful intersection of science and poetry.
At every level — from the cellular to the celestial.
And I feel it when I stand in the middle of my street, head craned up in wonder.

In keeping with this thought, a gift poem from the very clever and incredibly prolific J. Patrick Lewis.
Thank you, Mr. Lewis, for sharing this with Poetry Friday fans!

The Aged Sun

(This poem previously published in POEMS FOR TEACHING IN THE CONTENT AREAS, Scholastic Teaching Resources, 2007. All rights J. Patrick Lewis)

Did ya’ll read that article in the New York Times Magazine last weekend, the one about online reading sites for kids?

The author of Click and Jane argues that the benefit of sites like Starfall and One More Story is that a three-year-old can read (sort of) the books (not really) himself — and, thus, "learn to enrich his solitude".

Unlike real books which, Virginia Heffernan says, "are for when he feels snuggly."

Well.
God forbid!

Look, I’m all for raising human beings who know how to be alone and at ease, who even relish their solitude.
And literacy’s one great way to encourage and access that comfort and joy.

But really?

We need to encourage three-year-olds to develop this independence through online "reading" rather than falling into that lazy, old, snuggly pleasure of curling up with your mama and a bunch of books?

Really?

In case I haven’t made myself clear yet, I don’t think so. 

Since when does "enriched solitude" have to be cold, mechanical and digitized?

I’m 41 (and very comfortable being alone) and books are still a snuggly pleasure for me. Sometimes curled up with my kids, sometimes next to my husband in bed at night, and often alone, in a hot bath or on a blanket in the sun. Reading is a cozy and intimate affair, whether you’re ’round a rug in a classroom, or lined up on the couch as a family, or alone, and I don’t need some website cutting out the snuggles for me, thank you very much.

And I really don’t think we ought to be in the business of cutting them out of children’s lives, either.

Already kids compete for our attention with the endless chatter of email and cell phones and television, not to mention old-fashioned things, like chores, work and siblings. If we go to these lengths to emphasize independence over connectivity, we’re going to lose a lot more than the dog-eared stack of books on the coffee table. If we can’t offer enough undivided attention to get through a few pages a day — whether Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — then we’re not only saying to kids that we don’t value books, we’re saying we don’t value you! 

This is not my cry to ban all computers, unplug the electric lights and homeschool your kids in raising chickens and making cheese. You can do all that if you want, but I’m fine with the occasional electronic birthday invitation, YouTube video, and even a dang Kindle if you really want one.

Just let’s not pretend that that’s the same good stuff we get when snuggled up with a book — the paper and cardboard kind — and the people we love.

‘Cause it’s not.

School’s back in session and one of the courses I’m teaching this time around is entirely virtual.

As in, all online.

It’s an odd thing, never to meet your students face-to-face.

I still have a very tangible (old-fashioned?) image of what a class is. Not old-fashioned as in I-stand-up-front-and-lecture-ad-nauseum-as-my-students-use-toothpicks-to-try-to-stay-awake, but just that we’re a bunch of living, breathing bodies come together to talk, listen and learn together.

So, the breathing part kind of gets lost online, y’know?

And to counter that, I try to soak up each student’s sensibilities early on.
I try to discover what they like to read, what inspires them, what they aspire to.

This week there’ve been a broad array of poets discussed.
It tickles and inspires me, the wealth of work that’s out there.
And that people find, to read and love.
Everyone from Ovid to Mary Oliver, from Whitman to Patchen.

I thought I’d share one of the latter poem’s here.
It’s from a site called Poets Against War, where you’ll find all kinds of good stuff, including this:

Death Will Amuse Them
— Kenneth Patchen

A little girl was given a new toy
That needed no winding and would never run down
As even the best of everything will

I like to think I know people a bit better once I know what they’re reading. You?

Yesterday I received a big bundle of thank you notes from the students I worked with earlier this month.

It is always a treat to hear from kids, especially if they’ve been given a little leeway in terms of what to write. Which was obviously true in this case.

Here are some of my favorites:

Dear, Liz Scanlon
Thank you for coming to my school , I realy liked it espeshly the lie poum.
So I made you a poum!
ps I dount know how to speell poum!
Roses are red
Vilets are blue
Wich is the best?
Ofcores you!
Justin

Don’t they just tickle?
Reading letters like these is one of the surest ways to laugh and be deeply moved all in the same five minutes.
Sincerely.

Currently, my eldest is reading Harry Potter.
My youngest is reading The Hobbit.
Our read-aloud is Prince Caspian.
And I’m into New Moon.

We’re getting Gandalf and Trumpkin mixed up over here.
And I’m considering playing Quidditch with Edward.
For real.

The American Library Association recognized some mighty fine books this morning, not the least of which is Marla Frazee’s A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever — a 2009 Caldecott Honor Award winner.

Granted, I’m already inclined to be wooed by her work because Marla is a dear friend and personal illustrator of my next picture book, but truly folks…

A Couple of Boys is a tender, funny, empathic, intimate snapshot of boyhood and Marla is one deserving winner.

Raising my glass…

The hypothetical conversation at dinner last night went something like this:

"What if they made you give up books or music. Forever. Which one would you choose?"

"Who’s ‘they’?"

"The bad people. Who were taking over the world."

"Yeah. Only bad people would make you choose something like this, Mama."

"And you have to choose. You have to."

Torture!
We all agreed.

But then, after much hemming and hawing, we also all agreed that we’d give up… music.

Partly because we worked in a little wiggle room.
We’d be allowed to hum.
We’d be granted music books, which would help us hear music in our heads.
And who can stop a girl from singing in her sleep, after all?

But books?
There was no way around it.
We need ’em.
The girls had looks of utter horror on their faces at the prospect of doing without.

It’s hard to believe that lots of people do. Without, I mean.

Which is why I think that this is as good a time as any to remember our friends at:

First Book

Ethiopa Reads

Inside Books

Kids in Need Books in Deed

and the angels at your local public library.

Because really, nobody should have to do without books.

Over a family dinner during Christmas vacation, we had one of those long, semi-heated discussions that touch on politics, the economy, media, civic ideals. It went way past the main course and the kids all asked to be excused.

The nut was this — with new media at the forefront, with online versions of newspapers becoming the norm, who will the journalists be? Who will pay them? Who will get the stories, and will they be trained, careful, objective, committed and true?

My undergraduate degree is in journalism, and I tend to err a little on the side of the idealist, so I say that a free and dedicated press is an intrinsic part of our nation’s fabric, and such a vital expression of our values that we will not abandon it — even if we don’t want to pay for a daily paper the way we used to.

I won’t pretend to have a crystal ball vision of the future, though. No doubt journalism is evolving. Local and global stories are being captured and shared in new ways. Journalists struggle, on one hand, to give their audience the stories they say they want to read and, on the other, to give voice to the stories that truly need to be told. Plus, they have to be responsive to the increasingly corporate framework they work within. It’s enough to make a person dizzy.

Enter the poets. The new voices. The unfettered observers of the human condition. Or at least that’s what this very insightful journalist (who also happens to be my aunt) suggests.

I think of poets like Carolyn Forche, who has written as a witness just as keenly as any reporter on the front.
And poets like Billy Collins, who offers up humor and breathing room in the midst of wars and banking crises and whatnot.
And poets like Robert Hass, who puts words to the praise and reverance and compassion in a person’s heart.

These poets observe big and little bits of life, report upon them, and connect us across what seem to be gaping oceans of differences until they become familiar — universal, in fact — in the form of a poem. Not unlike a good journalist, you think?

(Click here for the story my aunt, Jane Dwyre Garton, wrote on poets, journalists and Ted Kooser’s fabulous American Life in Poetry Project.)

In my world, there’s hardly anything better than a good school visit.

I get such a charge out of spending a morning with a bunch of 4th graders.

The voices, both eager and shy, are still (mostly) unselfconsciously unique.
Which is a beautiful thing.

Today, I facilitated writing workshops for two groups of kids and the gleaming moments were many…

The spontaneous hug from a girl named Jenna…

The line, "Fire outraged my head when I was born"…

The hands raised, over and over again, to read aloud…

We talked a bit about breaking rules, about joy and impulse, about the fact that some kids don’t like to write.
Some think it’s boring.
Others think it’s hard.
Many find it scary.

And who am I to tell them differently?
I mean, really.
It IS scary.

That said, there’s fun to be had and under the guidance of William Carlos Williams who said, "Anything is fit material for poetry," we wrote ourselves a collaborative poem full of outrageous untruths. AKA, lies. I think you might like it.

The Lie Poem
By the students of Baranoff Elementary

The ocean is home to the great possum.
The world has ten sides and my dog is blue.
Brussel sprouts were never meant to be eaten.
Birds can’t fly.

You can never die blue.